The present invention relates generally to safety guards for use on pitched roofs, and more particularly, to an adjustable safety bracket which is used in the formation of a safety barricade along the edge of a roof which will prevent a roofer from falling off a roof.
In the construction of residential, some commercial and some industrial buildings, the construction of the roof on the structure presents a safety hazard because of the roof elevation. Roofs typically have a height which is high enough from the surrounding ground to present a serious injury potential to a roofer should the roofer fall off of the roof. In roof construction, a plurality of support members are erected and spaced-apart fashion along the walls of the building. In some instances the support members are individual roofing joists attached to a ridge board, while in other instances, the support members are prefabricated roofing trusses. No matter what style the roof support members take, large plywood sheets known as sheathing are typically laid over the roof support members and nailed thereto in order to construct the base of the roof, while secondary roofing materials, such as tar paper and shingles are applied to the sheeting.
The application of the roof sheathing and other secondary roofing materials, as mentioned above, presents a safety hazard to a roofer. This hazard is increased on steeply pitched roofs, in which the angle of the roof with respect to the surrounding ground is steep. If a roofer looses his or her balance, or slips, the pitch of the roof may be steep enough to impel the roofer to slide, or roll down, to the lower edge of the roof and fall off the roof, resulting in physical injury.
It therefore becomes desirable to provide some sort of barricade or stop surface at the edge of the roof which will catch and prevent a roofer from falling. In the past, small boards, known in the art as toe boards, have been temporarily nailed to the roof support members at an angle to the nailing surfaces of the roof support members. Although these toe boards are effective at preventing tools and materials dropped by a roofer from falling off the edge of the roof and injuring individuals underneath the edge of the roof, they are incapable of stopping the fall of a roofer.
Federal Safety Regulations issued by OSHA, are scheduled to go into effect in February 1995 which mandate that every commercial, industrial and residential structure under construction have some sort of roofing safety apparatus in place. Roofing safety means are well-known in the art and may range from a single tie-off anchor which is attached to a roof support member and which provides a point of attachment for a roofer to tie off a safety line, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,021 to Nichols and issued Sep. 28, 1993, to a roofing protective device consisting of a plurality of safety net sections supported in a gutter and guyed to the roof by guy wires, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,076 to Zust and issued Jun. 22, 1993. These devices suffer from certain disadvantages. The tie-off anchor will not necessarily stop a fall if the tie-off line is too long, and the safety net device is complex in construction and requires a large amount of time for installation and removal.
Still other protective devices, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,586 to Myers, and issued Nov. 26, 1991 utilize a complex linkage which engages both the surface of a building wall and a leading edge of the roof and are time-consuming to install and replace, thereby increasing the labor required for the construction of the roof.
The present invention is therefore directed to a roofing safety bracket assembly which provides a solution to the aforementioned problems. In doing so, it utilizes a minimum number of components which reduce the complexity of installation and removal of the assembly during construction of the roof, thereby reducing the overall labor that must be devoted to the safety aspect of roofing construction and consequently thereby reducing the cost involved. The safety bracket assembly engages a free end of a roofing support members and includes a support post receptacle aligned with an endface of the roof support member to provide a redundant safety feature to prevent catastrophic failure of the assembly, should a retention pin of the safety bracket assembly fail which holds the assembly components in position.
In an adjustable safety bracket assembly incorporating the principles of the present invention, an attachment member is provided by which the safety bracket assembly may be attached to the free end of a roofing support member. The attachment member rotatably holds a support member therewithin proximate to its end and spaces the support member away from the roof support member end. The support member receives a barricade post therein and wood sheathing nailed to these posts along the length of the roof define a fall-breaking barrier at the edge of the roof.
The rotatable connection permits the support member to be pivoted relative to the attachment member rotated between a plurality of preselected positions which correspond to a variety of roof pitches so that the support member may be oriented upright regardless of the pitch of the roof upon which it is installed. The support member has a post-receiving opening which receives a support post, such as a 2.times.4, which is oriented upright with respect to the pitch of the roof. The attachment member includes a plurality of openings adapted to engage a positioning pin which extends through the attachment member and support member to fix the position of the support member with respect to the attachment member. The support member is positioned within the attachment member at a location proximate to the endface to the roof support member, so that if the positioning pin should break, the support member will rotate only slightly and a stop surface thereon will bear against the roof support member endface, thereby retaining the support post and its protective barrier attached thereto in an upright and effective fall-breaking position.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved roof safety bracket assembly for use in roof construction which may be used to form a safety barricade at the edges of a roof under construction to substantially prevent falls off the roof.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a roof safety bracket assembly having a first leg which defines a mounting bracket of the assembly by which the assembly may be attached to a roof support member, the mounting bracket including means for attaching the assembly to the roof support member, the assembly having a second leg extending from the first leg and pivotally connected thereto, the second leg being held within an open end of the mounting bracket, the second leg having a hollow base portion which is adapted to receive a barricade support post therein to which may be attached a protective barricade member extending lengthwise along an edge of the roof, the assembly further including a positioning means adapted to fix the position of the second leg with respect to the first leg in order to maintain the second leg and a barricade support post held thereby in an upright position irrespective of the pitch of the roof.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a roofing safety bracket which engages the end of a roof support member and which supports a post in an upright position to which a safety barrier, such as a plywood sheet, may be affixed, the bracket including a roof attachment member having a channel portion and a bracket portion, the bracket portion extending out from the channel portion, a barrier post-receiving member pivotally mounted within the bracket portion of the attachment member, the barrier post-receiving member opposing the channel portion, whereby, when the roof attachment member is attached to the roof support member such that the roof support is held within said channel portion and an end of the roof support approaches the bracket portion thereof, the barrier post-receiving member presents a stop surface in opposition to the roof support end and engages same upon pivoting about a pivot point, this engagement retaining the barrier post-receiving marker in an upright position.
These and other objects, features, advantages of the present invention will be will be clearly understood through a consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.